Planning Exercise

Both the UGC and the universities are aware of the need to ensure the evolving needs of Hong Kong are effectively met. The UGC carries out a planning exercise, usually on a triennial basis with the aim of reviewing recent developments within the universities and assessing and working with the universities on their proposals for the future. The UGC ensures that in deliberating universities' academic planning and funding proposals of individual universities is given proper consideration - appropriate to their respective roles and missions.

The Government will only determine the approved student number targets by university and study level during a triennial planning exercise. Apart from disciplines with specific manpower requirements (only two such disciplines at present, namely education and healthcare), the Government does not specify the number of student places for individual disciplines or programmes. The universities may, under the principle of institutional autonomy, flexibly deploy their recurrent grants which are allocated in the form of a block grant, to determine the programmes to be offered and the allocation of student places among different disciplines.

The UGC would invite the universities to prepare Planning Exercise Proposals (PEPs) that meet the needs for the upcoming three years. Before the Planning Exercise formally commences, the Government would determine the strategic directions and broad planning parameters for the upcoming triennium for the universities' reference, while the UGC would proactively guide the universities to take into account the social development trends and the Government's policy objectives in drawing up PEPs, and to consider reviewing existing programme offerings, introducing new ones and replacing obsolete ones with a view to maximising the effectiveness of the Government's funding allocated to the funded universities.